Prosecution expected to rest

Defendants Quentin Kenon, left, and Rashard Oliver, are escorted into a Wayne County courtroom this morning as testimony resumes in their murder trials. The two face charges, along with Joshua Davis, in connection with a 2008 shooting.

The state is expected to wrap up its case as early as today against three Wayne County men charged in a 2008 shooting that ultimately resulted in the death of the owner of a Goldsboro convenience store.

Joshua Davis, Quentin Kenon and Rashard Oliver could, if convicted of first-degree murder, spend the rest of their lives in prison.

And each, during the first week of testimony, was identified by an eyewitness.

Marquetta Quinn, a former resident of the Courtyard housing projects, testified that she saw the three jump a fence and make their way toward the Brookside Convenient Mart Aug. 18, 2008. Moments later, she said she heard gunshots and saw them flee the establishment.

And Dennis Herring told the court he was standing outside the store just before the incident, but left after Kenon told him to.

"He told me to get away from the store -- that he was fixin' to rob it," Herring said. "He told me to leave so I left."

But perhaps the most damning testimony -- and the most highly contested -- came from victim Ribhi Kandeel's brother, Ismail, who recounted, for the jury, what he said Ribhi told him many times over during the two years between the shooting and his death.

"Did your brother ... ever talk to you about the night of the robbery?" Assistant District Attorney Mike Ricks asked him Thursday.

"Yes," Ismail responded.

He said that during the eight months he spent by his brother's side at Pitt Memorial Hospital, and the more than a year the two occupied various facilities in New York, Ribhi spoke often of the incident that would ultimately cost him his life.

And the story, Ismail said, never changed.

"One of them shot him and he fall to the ground. He told me he feel heavy," Ismail said. "He fall down and played like he's dead. He said, 'The one who shot me, he came and kicked me in the face.' He came to kick him to make sure he was dead."

"Did your brother give any description of the way the men looked when they came into the store?" Ricks then asked.

"He said, 'The guy who kicked me, his mask fall down and I could pick him from a million guys,'" Ismail replied.

"Did your brother tell you who was the person who kicked him in the face? What was the name of the person?" Ricks then said.

"His name is Shadow," Ismail replied.

Nearly every state's witness that has, to date, identified Oliver in the courtroom, has referred to him as "Shadow."

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